


The Dark is a Comforting Place

by howlingstiles



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Peter Hale, Alternate Season/Series 01, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Peter Needs a Hug, Rating May Change, Stiles gives him one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 14:28:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8920642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howlingstiles/pseuds/howlingstiles
Summary: Lastly, and if Peter is being honest he always knew, he was Stiles’ long before he was conscious. Long before he could’ve had a say in it. Long before any of them realized it.

  Peter doesn’t mind.

  How can he when he gets Stiles?





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my gift fic to z-nth on tumblr. I hope they enjoy and this might be something they wanted. 
> 
> Happy Holidays, everyone.

Peter wakes three months after the fire.

He wakes up only to fall into a catatonic state and place all of his hope for survival on the bony shoulders of a ten-year-old boy.

He wakes up to feel like he belongs somewhere, and he refuses for it be taken from him.

Whoever, be it a hunter or the boy’s father, decides to brush their _breath_ against the boy’s skin with ill intent, must be prepared for the wrath Peter will bestow upon them. The boy is his, and he is the boys.

* * *

The overhead light burns his eyes. Peter squeezes them shut, not paying attention to how long it takes to do the simple task. He opens them again, slower and takes the time to adjust to the sudden light. He hears slow barely-there heartbeats that signal approaching death and the strong ones that seem to belong to younger people.

The person behind the wall, and behind his head, screams at different pitches. Going from shrill to croaky when something smashes. Then silence. He is reclining in a hospital bed, going by the pale furnishings and hospital gown. He eyes the tubes that surround him, IVs litter his arms. Everywhere the gown touches on his right side _burns_. Like the flames that teased his family in licks before swallowing them whole. Only now Peter has to take deep breaths to remind himself that he survived.

His body healed as much as an omega can. It wasn't enough. His wolf claws at the skin that was forced on him. He rages as much as his body will allow without exhaustion.

Peter turns his attention to the pack bonds when his rage proves to be useless. Fraying at the back of his head and tied to his heart. He tenderly touches the weak, _so weak why are they so weak_ , pack bonds that lead to three people. One is so faint it wisps away the second he touches it. He and his wolf mourn, not knowing who that member is does nothing but add gloomy clouds over his thoughts. They hope they’re okay, he hopes it was little Cora, the one he shoved out the window when the cops arrived. He hates that they fled. That they left him. He can distinguish Laura’s and Derek’s. He touches them with less pressure, wolf curling around them, snuffling and licking them. They fall apart the same as the first and Peter _howls_.

He howls for the people he’s lost and for the justice he _knows_ they didn’t get.

He howls for being left behind by the people that should be by his side.

Peter struggles. Memories of choking perfume flooding the house and circling as he and his family burn alive. The same perfume that clung to Derek comparable to a vice. That _fool_. Leading a hunter right to them. Letting his dick do the thinking to get over Paige. He thirsts for revenge. His wolf hungers to sink its canines in retribution for the death of his family and being left behind where any hunter can find him. He glares at the ceiling, it is a crusty macaroni style.

Peter screams and snarls in his head when he realizes he can’t _move_ his _body_ . He pauses when he realizes he isn’t speaking. The screams that echo in his head aren't disturbing his room. He stops breathing when he takes notice of the presence in his room, at his right side - _the side that burns_. They have a frantic, too fast heartbeat. Their scent filled with nerves that make his wolf’s ear tip down and whine: bleach like the blankets that swaddle him, salt from tears sorrow, and alcohol.

He tries to regulate his heartbeat when the monitor starts to go off. The staff down the hall question if they should check in on him, but they leave it alone, thinking he is just having another hot flash. Peter is both grateful and appalled at the lack of surveillance from a hospital staff. Whoever it was had gasped and scrambled next to him, Peter assumes they were in a chair from the scrape on the ground. He tenses as much his limp limbs would allow (which was none at all) and waited for the shadow to stop creeping over him and for the person to meet his eyes. 

It was a kid.

A pale, mole splattered, boy with keen, fawn eyes resembling a hawk’s. Bruising marred his right cheek and lower lip. His hair was little over a buzz cut, dark circles seems like a permanent fixture on the boy, judging from how dark and purple they are. Peter would have chuckled at the red hoodie if he could get his body to listen to him. His wolf churns in his gut at the disheveled sight the boy makes.

“Uh, hi,” The boy stutters out with eyes flittering around. Darting from him, the door, to him, to the monitors, and back to the door. Fingers small fingers toy with hoodie strings. “Um, do you, do you want me to get a nurse?” The boy waited for Peter to say something but only received silence.

 _No, I don’t want the nurse. I want_ ** _out_** _._ _I want you gone._ Peter thought as he watched the boy flutter beside him. Peripheral vision is a gift that he will never overlook again. The boy chews on his lip and furrows his brows. 

“From what I remember it’s been about three months since the fire? Uh, sorry. You probably don’t want to hear about that.” His heartbeat races and panic invades the air. “Your niece called a week ago!” The boy blurts out with wide eyes, “she and your nephew are doing okay in New York.” The boy's eyes sharpen and Peter’s heart skipped a beat, those eyes were too inquisitive for a normal child. “I don’t think it’s fair they left you behind and went to live on the other side of the country. I mean who in their right mind leaves someone behind? Especially after what you went through.”

Peter wonders why the child knows as much as he does. He feels a little better when the boy’s heart doesn’t skip at his questioning over his family’s _remarkable_ actions. _Loyal,_ his wolf supplies. Peter's eyes flicker as he hears a nurse make their way down the hall. The door is wide open and has a perfect view of Peter’s bed. The boy must hear the nurse as well since he ducks and hides behind Peter’s bed until they pass. He perks up and watches over the arm railing and stands when he believes the nurse is gone.

Peter's unnerved that the boy isn’t wrong on that count. By the time the kid stood to full height the nurse was settling into her receptionist chair down the hall. How long has this kid been here and why does he feel relatively safe.

“I’m not supposed to be in here,” The boy explains, “my mom is in the room next to you. She uh, she has frontotemporal dementia. The docs and my dad won’t tell me what is happening to her, they think it’s better I don’t know my mom is on her deathbed. What good is that gonna do? Have me think it’s going to be okay and she dies. It’s like they don’t realize I have access to a computer. Sometimes it’s pretty bad and,” he gestures to his face, where the bruise is, “sometimes she doesn’t like to see me.” He is quiet for a few moments after that. He moves out of view and a chair creaks underweight. “My dad doesn’t like not knowing where I am. So to the hospital with my dying mother I go.” He finishes weakly.

“I’m Stiles, by the way. Well, my first name isn’t _really_ Stiles, I mean no one would be that cruel, right? It’s just nobody but my mom and dad can pronounce my name and mom is kinda….out of it so I go by Stiles so it’s easier for her to remember.” _Me._ Stiles beamed from his perched on the railing. Arms folded on top of each other and chin resting on the pile. His fingers tapped the bars with a hum filling the silence. “It’s nice to meet you, Peter. I hope you don’t mind me staying in your room.”

Stiles opens his mouth again, no doubt to ramble about what crossed his mind when a nurse walks in. Stiles doesn’t get another word out. The nurse promptly calls for a doctor when she sees Peter is awake (and drops his new bed sheets) and the boy is ushered out while Peter gets tested on. Peter endures hours of tests, hours of pinpricks and soft hits to his joints to get them moving. Hours of meaningless scans. Later, when they finally leave him alone and it’s hours past visiting time, Peter thinks about a man dressed in a deputy uniform walking away past his room with little Stiles. His father is a deputy and does not think leaving his son alone with an abusive person, his abusive _parent_ , is a bad idea? Peter refuses to think too hard on how he vows for retribution on Stiles’ behalf.

Peter can’t say he is surprised when come morning he is diagnosed catatonic, it doesn’t take a genius to know. He isn’t surprised when Stiles stumbles into his room after three o’clock from seeing his mother. Peter is surprised, however, at how fast something shatters when Stiles steps into his mother’s room and she screams about how Stiles is out to kill her. That this _demon_ is wearing the mask of her son and it needs to be _burned_ . His mother is very lucky Peter is unable to do anything _at the moment_ to save Stiles. But the boy doesn’t need saving, he slips past the frantic nurses that were ready to sedate the patient from weeks of practice, and into Peter’s room.

Stiles smiles at him like nothing is wrong and his mother didn’t try to kill him a room over. The nurses leave him with Peter for the rest of the day. When the boy leaves accompanied by an alcohol stench father, he and his wolf agree that Stiles is theirs.

* * *

 If Peter was in his right mind, and it is a sad thing to acknowledge that he is already out of his depth, he wouldn’t have attached himself to this child. Wouldn’t have encouraged his wolf to make a bond between him and this boy that proved to have been coming here for awhile.

Proved to be loyal, and admittedly it was to save his own skin. Stiles looked into Peter, _really_ looked into him, and was that a shocking moment that almost half of his jobs for the pack made it onto his record, and picked his side. Proved to care about Peter enough to take all his faults in stride.

* * *

 As time went on, Peter comes to realize quite a few things about Stiles.

One being when the boy’s mother dies months after he awakes and Stiles silently moves into his room. Makes a home of it. Stiles doesn’t cry. Doesn’t do much other than take Peter’s hand and hold on tightly as his father is notified and comes screaming his grief.

Another is that Stiles’ loyalty surpasses what most humans go to, or call loyalty. He sits with Peter every other day and reads to him, tells him about his day and anything he can think of (he avoids mentioning the fire). Watches the nurses handle Peter with his keen eyes and generally _stays_ with Peter.

It stables the bond between him, the wolf, and the boy. Solidifies the decision in Stiles becoming his pack.

Lastly, and if Peter is being honest he always knew, he was Stiles’ long before he was conscious. Long before he could’ve had a say in it. Long before any of them realized it.

Peter doesn’t mind.

How can he when he gets Stiles?


End file.
